Blood Duel (22 page)

“It might be fun,” Verve insisted.

“You go if you want,” Cordial said. “And if anyone recollects seein’ you down toward Crooked Creek and asks if you had anything to do with the death of Crooked Creek Sam, you can tell them shootin’ him was fun, too.”

“Forget the damn posse,” Stern snapped. “We have business in Coffin Varnish the day after tomorrow. Or have you forgotten?”

“I ain’t forgot nothin’,” Verve said. “I will be there with the rest of you. Kin comes before all else.”

“A family is like a chain,” Stern said. “All the links have to be strong or the chain will break.”

“Dang, that was well put,” Happy said. “You have a way with words.”

“Enough rotgut and I can babble with the best of ’em.” Stern smirked, then soberly told Verve, “But I was serious about the chain. You are one of the links. You must always be there for those who share your blood. Kin is more important than anything.”

“I know that.”

“Then let’s not hear any more foolish talk about posses and such,” Stern said. “We have killin’ of our own to do. Those Haslett boys would like nothin’ better than to put windows in our skulls.”

“That is only fittin’,” Happy said, snickering, “since I can’t wait to put windows in theirs.”

“I wish there were more of us than there are of them,” Cordial said. “Four against four is too fair.”

Stern Larn nodded. “I have been thinkin’ the same thing. We need an edge and I figure I have come up with one.” He smiled. “We get to Coffin Varnish before they do and lie in wait for them.”

“Shoot them from ambush?” Happy said. “The people in Coffin Varnish might not like that.”

Verve snorted. “They invite folks to kill one another, they shouldn’t be particular about how it is done.”

“I never said it had to be
in
Coffin Varnish,” Stern Larn said. “We can lie in wait for the Hasletts just outside of town. Pick them off with our rifles before they can get off a shot.”

“You are a man after my own heart,” Verve said.

“I like the idea as much as you do,” Cordial said,
“but there was mention of permits, which means we have to get permission from somebody.”

“That’s right,” Happy said. “If we don’t do it right, we are liable to have the law after us.”

Stern Larn sat back. “Only if the law knows it was us. What if we shoot the Hasletts and skedaddle? We can be halfway to Denver before anybody comes after us.”

“The only one who knew about the feud is Crooked Creek Sam,” Verve mentioned, “and he won’t be tellin’.”

“Let’s put it to a vote,” Stern said. “Do we bother with a permit or do we do this the way hill folk have been killin’ one another since the dawn of creation?” He held up his hand. “I will start. I vote for ambush.”

“For ambush,” Verve said, squirming in his chair.

Happy Larn added his say. “Ambush.”

That left Cordial. He endured their stares while refilling his glass and then emptied half of it at a gulp.

“Well?” Verve prompted.

“I am a Larn, ain’t I?” Cordial said. “I am as strong a link in the chain as any of you.”

“Good.” Stern Larn rose. “Finish your drinks and let’s fan the breeze. We have us some killin’ to do.”

Seamus Glickman had pounded his boots on the floor for so long and so hard, his feet were throbbing welters of pain. He pounded them several more times, wincing as his ankles protested with agony, and listening intently for someone to call out and demand to know what all the ruckus was about. The other boarders had to hear. But no one yelled; no one came. He sagged, his chin on his chest.

As soon as Jeeter Frost and the schoolmarm left, Seamus had started pounding. That was a good twenty minutes ago. His ankles were tied, and Frost had secured his arms to the bottom of a bedpost, but he could still move his legs. Not that it had done him any good.

For the umpteenth time Seamus pushed against the gag with his tongue. It would not move. Frost had wedged it fast and tied a smelly bandanna over his mouth to keep it in place.
Damn him to hell!
Seamus thought. Damn them both, the shootist and the schoolmarm. Seamus did not care if Prescott was a woman. She deserved to be strung up by her thumbs and horsewhipped.

Seamus had been doing some pondering while he
pounded and he had come to a decision. He was through with the law. Wearing a badge paid well but not well enough to justify being buried before his time. Jeeter Frost holding that Colt on him had been a revelation. Frost could easily have shot him. Seamus suspected that if not for the schoolmarm, that is exactly what Frost would have done.

Seamus had always appreciated the fact that wearing a badge entailed risks. He knew a lot of lawmen were bucked out in gore. But knowing it in his head and experiencing it were two different things. Now that he had actually and truly stared death in the face, Seamus did not like death’s expression.

The question was: Should he stay on until Hinkle’s term of office was done with or should he quit right away? He was mulling it over when steps sounded in the hallway and someone shook the door.

“Open up. This is the sheriff.”

Seamus slammed his boots on the floor and gurgled as loudly as he could gurgle.

The next instant the door resounded to a powerful blow. The jamb splintered and in burst George Hinkle, his shoulder lowered, his revolver in hand. “Seamus! You’re alive!” Hinkle produced a folding knife and made short shrift of the strips of shawl. “I was worried,” he said as he cut. “We found Powell out in the alley. Jeeter Frost pistol-whipped him.”

The instant his hands were free, Seamus yanked on the bandanna and pulled out the gag. Spitting and coughing, he swallowed a few times to lubricate his throat. “That damned Frost got the drop on me.”

“You are lucky all he did was tie you up,” Sheriff
Hinkle said. “Powell about had his head half split open.”

“Then Frost and the schoolmarm got away?” Seamus stiffly rose and sat on the edge of the bed. He was going to tell Hinkle the truth about Ernestine Prescott, but he had to endure another fit of coughing.

“That poor woman. There is no telling what she has had to endure. Everyone in town is stirred up. I asked for twenty volunteers to form a posse and had to turn forty away.”

“There is something you should know,” Seamus said.

“Whoever saves her will be the talk of the territory,” Hinkle went on. “I intend for that to be us. She is my ticket to better things. To being appointed a federal marshal.”

“What are you on about?”

“I don’t intend to be a county sheriff forever. This badge is a stepping-stone, like everything else in life.” Hinkle came over and clapped Seamus on the shoulder. “I tell you that if we save the schoolmarm, we can rise as high as our ambition takes us.”

“We?”

“Don’t you have a hankering to move up in the world? Wouldn’t you like to be a federal marshal, too? The schoolmarm has done me the biggest favor anyone ever did, and she doesn’t even realize it.”

“What if she is with Frost because she wants to be with him?” Seamus casually asked.

“Don’t be ridiculous. She is being forced. We have the word of the justice of the peace. Besides”—Sheriff Hinkle grinned—“you wouldn’t want to spoil my
chance at the federal job, would you?” He paused. “Now, what is it you wanted to tell me?”

Seamus thought of how Ernestine Prescott had helped cut the shawl into strips and done some of the binding while Frost covered him. He thought of how she had pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes, how she had been seeing Jeeter Frost behind the town’s back, as it were, and now the entire town was worried about her welfare and her virtue when she was as safe as could be and had probably lost her virtue some time ago.

“Well?” Sheriff Hinkle prodded.

“I can’t rightly recollect,” Seamus lied. “Maybe it will come to me later.”

“In that case, fetch your horse and whatever supplies you think you will need. The posse heads out in half an hour.”

“Do you still want me to lead it?”

“Why wouldn’t I? That is, if you are up to it.”

“I want to set eyes on the schoolmarm again more than anything,” Seamus said. So he could slap her and thank her for her part in his humiliation.

“I am sending Jack Coombs with you,” Sheriff Hinkle said.

“That old coot? What for?”

“He is the best tracker in these parts,” Hinkle said. “Maybe the best tracker alive. Once the sun is up, call on his talents. It would not surprise me if you are back here tomorrow night with Frost in handcuffs and the schoolmarm singing your praises.”

The posse proved to be the usual mix of citizens, notable among them Lawrence Fisch, the son of the president of The First Bank of Dodge City, who also happened to be the president of seven other banks
built in towns along the railroad’s right-of-way. Others included store clerks, a blacksmith’s apprentice, Texas cowboys who had arrived in Dodge two days ago with a herd, a butcher, a gambler, and the last person in the world Seamus expected to join a posse. Gigging his mount over, Seamus said as much.

Frank Lafferty was scribbling on a pad by the light from a nearby window. “The schoolmarm has been kidnapped and you wonder why I want to go along? This will make headlines across the country.”

“So you are not in this for her, you are in this for you.” That was more like the Lafferty Seamus knew and disliked.

“Don’t get me wrong. I hope we find her alive and well.”

“But it will be better for your career if she is violated and dead,” Seamus said. “I think I will talk to the sheriff and have him refuse you permission to go along.”

“He can’t,” Lafferty said smugly. “Haven’t you ever heard of the First Amendment? I have a right to be on this posse, more right than anyone else.”

“You are a human coyote. Real coyotes feed on animal carcasses. You feed on the carcasses of people, like you did the Blights and Paunch Stevens. All so you can puff yourself up and fill your poke.”

“Why, Undersheriff Glickman, how perceptive of you,” Lafferty said. “Imagine, someone wanting to make money. Or wanting to further their career. I suppose you have no desire to do either?”

“I hope we catch up to Jeeter Frost and he puts a slug in your head,” Seamus said.

“Spoken like a true lawman.”

Seamus reined to the front of the posse and swung his arm to signal they should move out. As they passed the Comique he gave a wistful sigh. He could be eating a thick steak smothered in onions and drinking fine wine. Instead, he was venturing off across the prairie after a vicious killer and a wayward schoolmarm. If he wasn’t real careful, it could be that Lafferty would get to feed off another death: his own.

They rode in silence for over an hour.

Jeeter Frost held to a trot until he was sure no one was after them. Then he slowed to a walk. It was folly to exhaust their mounts until there was a definite reason to do so.

Not one word from Ernestine the whole time. She was acting strange, Jeeter concluded. Ordinarily, he liked quiet. He had been alone for so long that quiet was a natural condition. But now that he had someone, her silence ate at him like the sting of rancid vinegar. He took it for as long as he could. Finally, shifting in the saddle, he blunted asked, “Are you still mad at me?”

“Over what?” Ernestine asked.

The suggestion that he might have given her more than a single cause to be mad astounded him. “About me slugging that deputy. What else could it be?”

“Well, there is your bossy disposition,” Ernestine said. She never had liked being told what to do. She had a mind of her own and was perfectly willing to exercise it.

“But we had to light a shuck!” Jeeter protested. “If we had hung around Dodge, I would be behind bars by now.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not,” Ernestine said. “I am not so certain your attack on the deputy was warranted.”

“It sure as hell was,” Jeeter said.

Ernestine’s already ramrod-straight back became straighter. “I will thank you not to take that tone with me. Nor use that kind of language. Honestly. We have only just been married, and here you are, displaying some disturbing tendencies.”

Jeeter felt a funk coming on. “You knew who I am and what I have done when you agreed to be mine.”

“I agreed to be your wife, not your property,” Ernestine clarified “As for the other, you led me to believe that if we wed, you would put that life behind you and start anew.”

“And I will,” Jeeter said, “just as soon as we reach somewhere safe.”

Ernestine glanced at his darkling profile. “Why not turn over the new leaf here and now? Forsake the old ways? Unbuckle your Colt and put it in your saddlebags.”

“Why don’t I dig my own grave while I am at it?” Jeeter rejoined. “Or didn’t you hear the part about somewhere safe?”

“You can be terribly facetious at times, do you know that?”

Jeeter had no idea what the word meant, but it did not sound like something he wanted to be called. “I do what I have to in order to survive.”

“You bring that up a lot. But I am talking about your attitude toward me,” Ernestine said. “You have taken to treating me as if I am ten years old.”

“That’s just silly,” Jeeter said. “Who better than me knows you are a growed woman?”

“Grown,” Ernestine amended. “And the answer is no one. You are my first and you will be my last. My heart is yours for as long as you want it, and when you do not want it anymore, I will not give it to anyone else.”

Jeeter relaxed a little. “You still care for me, then?”

“Now who is being silly?” Ernestine retorted. “Or do you consider me so fickle as to let a little thing like pistol-whipping that deputy come between us?”

“A man never knows with women.”

“You will find me as constant as the sun and the moon in my affection for you,” Ernestine said. “But always remember. Unlike some women, whose brains are ruled by their bodies, I am the opposite. My body is ruled by my brain and will continue to be so for as long as I endure.”

“Even if I have to pistol-whip someone else someday? Or be forced to shoot somebody?”

“You have me by your side now,” Ernestine said. “I will see to it that you do not find yourself in situations where violence is called for. It will be my wifely duty to guarantee you never again spill a drop of human blood.”